Statistical thinking

Considering statistics for ovarian cancer, and a 35% five-year survival rate - does it mean from diagnosis? From end of treatment? Assuming it means from diagnosis, then I'll probably die within the next four years? Even though I went to the correct experienced gyn/oncologist, who was an experienced debulking surgeon, and got the best chemo treatment available. So, here I am in a wait and see mode, but am quite bored with my life, itching to travel and constrained by school schedules and finances. Trying not to do much or plan much, living one day at a time, to find out when the other shoe drops and they tell me it has returned. In AA they tell you make no major changes in the first year. For ovarian cancer, the major changes have already occurred. The problem now is planning for all eventualities, and figuring out how to live knowing I have absolutely no control over what happens, that I am subject to whatever new treatments exist when it returns. Do I get through December? If so, I can go back on the same treatment I already had. If not, I'm sure what they will give me will be much worse and more difficult to tolerate. With metformin, do I have a 70% chance of living five years? Will I live to see my son graduate from college in four years? Maybe. Unlikely to see graduate school completion. So, I try to spend additional time with him, teach him life lessons that I thought we would do much later, financial management too. Wishing I had the crystal ball when someone could tell me I had 2.4 years or 3.7 years until it comes back so I could go live life without worry until then.